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Victorian morality is a distillation of the moral views of people living at the time of Queen Victoria's reign (1837–1901) and of the moral climate of the United Kingdom throughout the 19th century in general, which contrasted greatly with the morality of the previous Georgian period. Victorian morality can describe any set of values that espouse sexual restraint, low tolerance of crime and a strict social code of conduct. Due to the prominence of the British Empire, many of these values were spread across the world.
The term "Victorian" was first used during The Great Exhibition in London (1851), where Victorian inventions and morals were shown to the world. Victorian values were developed in all facets of Victorian living. The morality and values of the Victorians can be classed to Religion, Morality, Elitism, Industrialism and Improvement. These values take root in Victorian morality, creating an overall change in the British Empire.
Historians now regard the Victorian era as a time of many contradictions, such as the widespread cultivation of an outward appearance of dignity and restraint together with the prevalence of social phenomena such as prostitution and child labour. A plethora of social movements arose from attempts to improve the prevailing harsh living conditions for many under a rigid class system.
Historical background
The term Victorianum has acquired a range of connotations, including that of a particularly strict set of moral standards, often hypocritically applied. This stems from the image of Queen Victoria—and her husband, Prince Albert.
Two hundred years earlier the Puritan movement, which led to the installment of Oliver Cromwell, had temporarily overthrown the British monarchy. During England’s years under Cromwell, the law imposed a strict moral code on the people (such as abolishing Christmas as too indulgent of the sensual pleasures).
When the monarchy was restored, a period of loose living and debauchery inspired too by the rise of French Court cultural influence all over Europe, appeared to be a reaction to the earlier religious based forms of repression. (See: Charles II of England) The two social forces of Puritanism and libertinism continued to motivate the collective psyche of Great Britain from the Restoration onward. This was particularly significant in the public perceptions of the later Hanoverian monarchs who immediately preceded Queen Victoria. For instance, her uncle George IV was commonly perceived as a pleasure-seeking playboy, whose conduct in office was the cause of much scandal.
Description
Victo
Religious morality
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Religious morality changed drastically during the Victorian Era. When Victoria took the throne the Anglican Church was very powerful—running schools and universities, and with high ranking churchmen holding offices in the House of Lords. The Church's power continued to rule in rural areas throughout the Victorian Era; however that was not the case in industrialized cities. In the cities those against the Church were many and dissent was rampant. However, dissent has been running its pressure since the onset of Puritanism in politics even before the Oliver Cromwell days. The dissenting sects were against what the Anglican church was using its power for. The Church demanded obedience to God, submissiveness and resignation with the goal of making people more malleable to the will of the Church. The Church aimed to appease the will of the elite and cared little if at all about the needs and wants of the lower, peasant class. Thus emerged Methodism, Congregationalism, The Society of Friends (Quakers) and Presbyterianism. The Methodists and Presbyterians in particular stressed personal salvation through direct individual faith in Jesus Christ's sacrificial death and resurrection on the behalf of sinners, as taught in the New Testament Gospels and the writings of the Apostles Peter, James and Paul. This stress on individualism is seen throughout the Victorian Era and becomes even more developed in Middle Class life.
The "Crisis of Faith" would hit religion and the citizens' faith like a brick. The Crisis of Faith was brought about in 1859 with Charles Darwin's work On the Origin of Species; his theory was (in the basic form) that the Natural World had become what it was through gradual change over eons. He stated that natural selection and survival of the fittest were the reasons man had survived so long. His theory of evolution based on empirical evidence would call into question Christian beliefs and Victorian values. People whose lives became totally uprooted felt the need to find a new system on which to base their values and morality. Unable to completely lose faith, they combined both their religious beliefs with individual duty -- duty to one's God, fellow man, social class, neighbour, the poor and the ill.
The elite and middle class values
The Victorian Era began with the elite in total control of society and its politics. The elite class was made up of 300 families which were firmly established as the traditional ruling class. However, the development of new types of values, such as individualism, introduced changes throughout the Victorian Era. The idea of the self-made man became dominant in the middle class. Similar to the American Dream, the idea is that, if they work hard enough, all men can become wealthy.
Upper class values
The upper class (the elite) valued history, heritage, lineage and the continuity of their family line. They believed that they were born to rule through divine right and they wanted this right to continue. They had a paternalistic view of society, seeing themselves as the father in the family of society. Noblesse oblige was their belief that it was the elite's duty to take care of society. The elite hoped to continue tradition and the status quo, through institutions such as the law of primogeniture (first-born son inherits everything). The elite intended to stay on top and wealthy. However, when a financial crisis threatened their position, they adapted and opened up their ranks to the wealthiest of the middle class, allowing them to buy a place within the ranks of the elite. The elite were landed gentry and so they did not have to work, and instead enjoyed a life of luxury and leisure. While the elite maintained their traditional values, Victorian values and attitudes changed and the elite began to recognize and promote the middle class.
See also
References
- Notes
- Merriman 2004,p. 749.
- Merriman 2004, p. 747.
- ^ Bayley, S. 2008, p. 108
- ^ Bayley, S. 2008, p. 109
- ^ Bayley, S. 2008, p. 112
- ^ Bayley, S. 2008, p. 113
- Bayley, S. 2008, p. 146
- Bayley, S. 2008, p. 147
- Bayley, S. 2008, p. 200
- ^ Bayley, S. 2008, p. 154
- Bibliography
- Bayley, S (2008). Victorian Values: An Introduction Montreal: Dawson College.
- Gay, Peter. The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud
- Merriman, J (2004). A History of Modern Europe; From the French Revolution to the Present New York, London: W.W. Norton & Company.